Starter episode: “Breaking the Cycle w/Marissa Hackett”
Come for the satisfying pun in the title, stay for the deeply researched chronicles of all kinds of cults. Shows where a single host reads from a script can sometimes feel stiff, but Sarah Steel delivers each potted history with warmth and humanity, letting the facts speak for themselves rather than falling prey to overdramatizing. Each episode of “Let’s Talk About Sects” is focused on a single group, some well-known (like the Peoples Temple of Jonestown), others obscure but no less fascinating. And in each case, Steel makes a point of focusing as much on the psychology of the victims as on its leader, gently unpacking the factors that can make people susceptible to the cult’s machinations. There are also regular interview episodes, in which Steel speaks to survivors about their experiences within cults.
Starter episode: “Branch Davidians”
In her meticulously researched podcast “You Must Remember This,” the film historian Karina Longworth tells true stories from the first century of Hollywood in a style that’s captivating in its simplicity, with no elaborate re-enactments or soundscapes. In 2015, early in the show’s run, Longworth aired a season titled “Charles Manson’s Hollywood,” which proved so popular it has now been repackaged into a separate series. Longworth’s inimitable, carefully enunciated delivery is mesmerizing, creating an appropriately haunting atmosphere as she describes how thwarted ambitions and a web of Hollywood acquaintances factored into Manson’s twisted worldview, and chronicles the events leading up to the murders committed by Manson’s followers in the summer of 1969. The twelve-episode season is so packed with detail and nuance that even for those who know the story well, this is a fresh take.
Starter episode: “What We Talk About When We Talk About the Manson Murders”
This show has a compelling selling point: It’s hosted by two cult survivors, both invested in dispelling the myth that anyone who joins a cult must be naïve. Lola Blanc and Meagan Elizabeth, who were raised in a Mormon offshoot sect and a high-control Christian sect, respectively, talk to guests about their experiences of being in cults, as well as abusive relationships, repressive religions and extreme belief systems more broadly. Recent interviewees have included a woman who was raised in the homophobic Westboro Baptist Church, a former CrossFit employee who found herself reshaping her entire identity around the company, and two survivors of the sex cult at Sarah Lawrence College. The subject of conspiracy theories and online groupthink also crops up often: In one episode, a former One Direction “stan” discusses falling down the rabbit hole into toxic fandom, and in another, a former conspiracy theorist explains why Alex Jones’s rhetoric drew him in. Given the recent rise of influencer-led “cults” on TikTok, the podcast’s blend of all these subjects feels timely.
Starter episode: “Antonio Perez — Alex Jones, the New World Order, and Conspiracy Theory Addiction”
The majority of us have never been in a cult, but that doesn’t mean our lives are untouched by cultish thinking. As this sharp and funny series makes clear, some of the biggest companies in the modern world built their success by cultivating devotees. In each episode of “Sounds Like a Cult,” the comedian Isa Medina and the writer Amanda Montell break down a different “zeitgeisty group” and assess how cultlike it really is. Some of the subjects are obvious choices, like Apple, boutique fitness studios SoulCycle and CrossFit, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness empire Goop. But Medina and Montell are unwilling to settle for low-hanging fruit — consider their episode on weddings, a ritualistic ceremony replete with patriarchal traditions and conformist uniforms which they call “the most mainstream cult we’ve ever covered on the show.” The show’s great pleasure is its unpredictability, and its refreshing knack for making you look at accepted norms through fresh eyes.
Starter episode: “The Cult of Goop”
